Usdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis says: “Usdaw welcomes that the general election has been called for Thursday 4 July. It finally gives our members the chance to vote for the change they so desperately need after 14 years of austerity, chaos and the Tories’ cost of living crisis.
 
“We are urging our members to vote Labour for a new deal for workers, action on retail crime and support for struggling high streets.
 
“The past fourteen years have shown what a Tory Britain looks like: austerity that cruelly targets the most vulnerable people in our communities; relentless attacks on workers’ and trade union rights that creates more insecure work; chaotic economics that caused a deeply damaging cost of living crisis, and the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting that blights our struggling retail industry.
 
“We’ve all had enough. That’s why Usdaw is campaigning for a Labour Government. A vote for the Conservatives is not a vote for working people, their families or their communities. It is only the Labour Party that will bring the changes that working people need.”
 
Notes for editors:
 
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is one of the fastest growing unions in the TUC and the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
 
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion